In Conversation with Mathieu Baudin, Futurist and Director of the Institute for Desirable Futures

For years, Mathieu Baudin has studied the great shifts of our time. His goal is to help people imagine futures that are more desirable, more human, and more sustainable. Through his keynotes and advisory work, he pushes organizations and citizens to treat uncertainty as fertile ground for innovation, awareness, and action.

Iker: Where do you stand in this in-between?

Mathieu: I don't like determinism. During the Renaissance, science freed us from fate. Once we felt we could master our destiny, we got a little arrogant. We made ourselves masters and owners of everything. Now we're rebalancing. I like the analogy of the seasons. For a long time, I believed we were in the fall of our civilization. Fall is the one season when watching things die doesn't make you sad. You know it's part of what makes spring possible. We overdid it a bit in the 20th century. It's time to let that go. But between fall and spring, there's winter.

We already have one foot in it. Skipping it isn't an option. What we do get to choose is the energy we bring as we go through it. My whole message comes down to this: choose the energy of life over the energy of death. And to me, spring starts as soon as the days get longer. So we don't have to sit through three full months of winter.

Iker: Does this era call for turning inward?

Mathieu: Every wisdom tradition calls for a period of introspection. You have to work on yourself before you set out to build anything. But look at our society. It's individualistic, because that serves the god of consumerism. When I was a kid, we valued pushing past our limits. Today, personal development is the be-all and end-all. That phase should only be temporary. Add up everyone's personal growth and you still don't get a society. The Greeks had scholé, a kind of studious leisure. It was time they set aside to build themselves, and it's where our word “school” comes from. The Romans called it otium. Today we mostly remember its opposite, negotium, which literally means “not-otium.” That's the root of “negotiate.” So when something really matters and you call it “non-negotiable,” that's a double negative. It means it belongs to otium. We need time to ourselves to get to what matters most.

Iker: Why do we struggle so much to think long-term?

Mathieu: We urgently need to take our time. Our grandparents knew that if you want to go far, you pace your horse. The paradox is that our time keeps getting eaten up. We urgently need to give each other the gift of time. Consumerism needs acceleration. It needs to break free of time. Here's how the gift of time works. Pick someone who likes you. Tell them, “Let's get together three months from now.” Three months later, on the morning of, call them: “Actually, we're not meeting. I just gave you the gift of time. You have two hours to do something you never have time for.” They'll realize they do have time, because I changed the rules of the game.

Virginie: Foresight is often described as abstract. What is it actually for?

Mathieu: Philosophy is considered abstract too. And yet purpose has become a big deal for companies. Businesses used to never question themselves, because nobody questioned the destination. Now, if nothing changes, the destination is a dead end. Foresight uses the future as an excuse to examine the present. Its job is to help decision-makers see the consequences of their choices. Gaston Berger formalized it in the 1950s. Foresight tackles the question of the horizon. We don't have a shortage of solutions. There are plenty. What we lack is a horizon, a shared sense of where we're headed. In the broadest sense, that's what politics is. Seneca said, “No wind is favorable to the sailor who doesn't know where he's going.” There are two ways to move through unknown territory. One: you dodge obstacles. An iceberg on the right, an island on the left. By default, that creates a path. Two: you choose a horizon, and you approach the unknown in a completely different way.

Iker: Should we try to predict the future, or build desirable futures?

Mathieu: The future isn't something you predict. It's something you prepare. That line isn't mine, it's Maurice Blondel's. It's a matter of will, not determinism. As long as there are humans in the future, there will be surprises. We're the one variable you can't quantify: the famous human factor. Depending on the day, it's the damn human factor or the precious human factor. Since the raw material is human, we need philosophy to imagine the future, far more than math. Gaston Berger called it a philosophy of action. At the Institute, we added a poetics of action, because wonder has always been a great ally for moving past the impossible. There are many futures, plural. But from experience, we're confident they'll converge. It comes down to humanity finding its balance on a planet with finite limits. At Delphi, “Know thyself” was carved at the entrance. But further in, there was another, lesser-known phrase: “Nothing in excess.”

It was the antidote to hubris, to excess. Tomorrow will be, at its core, whatever we make of it.

Virginie: What does it mean to join your “positive conspiracy”?

Mathieu: In Latin, conspirare means “to breathe together” as much as “to plot.” It's a breath that lets you breathe and draw inspiration. And it's a breath in the sense of a movement. We'll have to plot a few moves, because the system won't let itself be overtaken that easily. It's more an attitude than a rank. The CJD, a French network of young business leaders, has been a positive conspirator since 1938. When foresight is done well, opening up the future frees up the present. And the present urgently needs freeing. Right now it's frozen, straitjacketed by people who want nothing to move.

Iker: How do you give yourself a horizon when day-to-day pressure never lets up?

Mathieu: It's more a process than a formula. Step one is time. At the Institute, we run a journey to the futures every six months, so people can take time for time itself. Then they use that time to understand the times we live in. Being clear-eyed isn't the same as being fatalistic. Lucidity comes from the Latin lux: light. Yes, times are hard. Yes, a dark future is possible. But yes, desirable futures are possible too, especially if we help build them. Therapists will tell you the only way out of depression is to do things. By doing, you take back part of your destiny. During the French Revolution, Danton called for “audacity, more audacity, always audacity.” Our version would be: experiment, experiment, experiment. With one philosophy: “Worst case, it works.” The simple formula is the three A's. Abandon something you do but no longer want to see in the world you'd like to live in. Adjust something you already do but could do better. Adopt something new and see if you like it. And there's a fourth step: a fellowship of conspirators, men and women together, to support each other, inspire each other, and breathe together.

Virginie: What will the generations of 2050 thank us for changing?

Mathieu: “Thank you for not forgetting that it was possible. You felt it could still be done, despite everything people were telling you.” This isn't just about what's desirable. It's about what's truly possible.

Lightning Round

The biggest illusion of our time?

Believing we're truly alone in the universe.

A word we should use more?

“Congruence.” It's the smallest possible gap between what you think and what you do.

Where do you do your best thinking?

In hands-on work: tinkering, art, sculpture.

A book that stays with you?

Le Passeur de lumière, by Bernard Tirtiaux. It follows an apprentice glassmaker as the age of cathedrals comes to an end. It's the story of a man who becomes who he is through the work he does.

Past or future, if you could travel in time?

Both. But I'd start with the future.

What do you do to stay curious?

When I regularly go from point A to point B, I never take the same route twice.

Dinner with three people?

Hypatia of Alexandria, an incredible woman. Fidel Castro. And Pico della Mirandola, the Renaissance thinker who set out to know everything, so I could ask him what he doesn't know yet.

A message for humanity 100 years from now?

“Are you happy?” If they say yes, I keep going. If they say no, I course-correct. It means I need to change something.

Key Takeaways

4 things to remember:

• We're living through the end of a historical cycleAccording to Mathieu Baudin, our era marks the close of the chapter opened by the Industrial Revolution. We're in an “in-between”: an old world is fading, and a new one has yet to be invented. Getting through this transition means facing uncertainty with an “energy of life,” not with fear or fatalism.
• The future isn't predicted, it's builtForesight isn't about guessing what comes next. It's about shining a light on the present to guide our choices. In his view, many futures are possible. The real challenge is to choose a desirable horizon together, instead of being at the mercy of crises and collapse narratives.
• Taking time becomes essentialMathieu Baudin stresses how urgently we need to slow down in a society driven by speed and consumerism. For him, making time to reflect, feel, experiment, and reconnect with what matters is a precondition for imagining a different kind of society.
• Change comes from collective action and experimentationIn the face of widespread paralysis, he urges us to take concrete action, even on a small scale. His “3 A's” method (Abandon, Adjust, Adopt) helps you change your habits step by step. And it all happens within a collective movement he calls a “positive conspiracy,” built on mutual support, inspiration, and momentum.

Originally published in French on Konxus Média ↗